Author archive

edstefanko

EDLP 717 has opened up my eyes to whole new world of opportunities for presenting information to my staff and community.  The process of creating a presentation in this format is very different for me.  Thinking of your information as a story makes the data more challenging to interpret for the audience.  I find that using the author’s idea of creating a story board is the most effective way to prepare.  Once the story is developed it makes the pictures easier to find.  

The presentations last Wednesday by class mates were unbelievable. They held my attention and synthesized the information to point I truly understood the main findings of their year-long reports without being bored.  The pictures they used to make their key points are still fresh in my mind.  It is incredible how powerful a picture of a long, empty school hallway or a chameleon in the trees can have for the audience.  The facts related to those pictures are now engrained in my mind.

This form of presentation holds greater meaning to the client.  By telling the story of the data and grabbing them with visuals, the client becomes involved in the study rather than being an obsevrer to the study. So if you can make a program evaluation interesting, imagine what you can do for your staff and community for new programs at the school level.

edstefanko

Today I was home sick and watched the morning news.  The Today Show reported about a two-year study on the Mediterranean Diet.  The news reported that the evaluators found such significant results of the diet in reducing heart disease, obesity and diabetes that they stopped the study.  The evaluators felt it was unethical not to share findings with the control group.  In the past, I would have listened to the report and my take-away would have been “Man I should try that diet”. But now the report has me thinking back to class last week when we analyzed a study done with inmates and their rehabilitation methods or lack there of.  In class, we spent a lot of time talking about ethical issues of evaluators and what should we do in certain situations.  I feel that we are ethically obligated to think of the effects the program has on both the sample and the control.  I agreed with the evaluators of the before mentioned study.  If the findings were significant enough to generalize to the entire population , then why continue?  Share the benefits with all.

edstefanko

This year has been devoted to studying a program within my school.  Last semester, I focused on the activities and the resources needed to evaluate the program.  Now as we study the design methods, it makes me wonder if the logic model done last semester was driven by my natural drawl to the values branch.  As an educator, I believe that I can not be subjective in the way I approach educational programs.  I need to understand more than the cost-effective side. The desire to know if the program truly adds value to the students’ education, social adjustment or other aspect of their lives is important to me.  The Capstone Project makes me question how I will be able to be subjective for the client and control the desire to approach things from a values perspective. How do you balance what your beliefs are and what they need to be to fit the goals of your client?

edstefanko

The feedback provided by Dr. Driver after the first assignment was thorough and specific.  To me the feedback provided an outstanding insight to the flow of my paper.  Word choice and sentence structure suggestions gave me reason to think about my writing style and how to improve.  Because the feedback was specific and authentic, it was much more valuable to me than the grade.  I believe it would have been beneficial to extend this class through the entire year.  As sections of our mini Capstone project approached, we could have had the luxury of writing the sections in chunks and submit them to receive this type of authentic feedback.  The feedback and learning process could have allowed us to be extremely prepared for the real Capstone project.

edstefanko

The end of the first year is here.  What a challenging year. However, I have learned a lot about myself both as a student and a professional.  As a professional, I have taken the things learned in class and applied it to my new school.  The most important thing this first year has been the knowledge I have gained about being a leader.  The Five Dysfunctions of a Team was a very critical book to me.  I marked and reread it like a “Leaders for Dummies” book. How to build a team and how to get them to work together for the good of the corporation is a pivotal part of the book to me.  I firmly believe that had I not had the prep work in the summer, my first month as a principal would have been rocky.  Even though the endless hours of MBTI became daunting, I feel I know myself better as a leader now than I ever did.  I look forward to taking each part of this journey and constantly questioning my leadership.

Personally as a student, I had to learn how to do everything again.  This whole program has me questioning my abilities in almost everything and that is not a bad thing.  The ability to write and the ability to manipulate technology have been the largest learning curves.  Using a WordPress site has pushed me to my limits and I must say that I still feel quite inferior to others in the class.  The learning process has been huge.  However, I have time with this aspect of my learning. I realize that the professors are not expecting the same from me as from students like John.  However, I never want to disappoint them.  The bigger issue to me has been the mechanics of my writing.  I felt confident as a writer prior to this fall.  Now, I must draft my papers at least 4 times before I submit. I solicit help from AP English teachers to teach me how to be better.  And even then, I bite my lip as I push the button.  My goal is to eventually submit a paper that is mechanically error free.  Always the dream, maybe next year.